Years later, Brice Lemon Estates back before planning board

After a hiatus of several years, the Brice Lemon Estates subdivision, proposed by Cleland Blair Jr., is back before the planning board.

At its July 22 continued public hearing, Carl Hultgren, P.E., senior engineer for Quinn Engineering, Inc. hired by the planning board to review Blair’s amended definitive subdivision plan for Brice Lemon Estates, presented a lengthy review of the waivers requested by Blair and other technical aspects of the plan, including access to a pond on the property.

The plan was first presented to the planning board in January 2001 by Cleland Blair Sr. and was initially called Brice Estates, with a proposed 80-unit subdivision on 96 acres. Blair Sr. sold the land to Blair Jr. in 2002.

Construction was put on hold in 2003 when the conservation commission denied a permit that would have allowed the project to proceed. In June 2004, Blair Jr. withdrew for review the Brice Estates plan and later submitted plans for Brice Lemon Estates. At that time Blair estimated the project, broken into four phases, would take eight to 10 years to complete.

In December 2005, the planning board approved the plan for 112 new homes and set 29 conditions for the subdivision. A portion of the original 135-acre Rufus Putnam House National Historic Landmark is part of the plan. The Rufus Putnam House, and eight acres of the landmark parcel, is owned by Marcia and Chris Warrington, and they have long voiced concerns over the project.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a non-profit chartered by Congress to lead the country’s private historic preservation movement, weighed in on the project in August 2005, requesting the planning board “exercise its discretion and insist on a more compatible design that respects the historic and architectural significance of the Rufus Putnam House.” Marilyn M. Fenollosa of the National Trust wrote that development of the Brice-Lemon site could have an adverse impact on a National Historic Landmark and is required to undergo an environmental review with the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

At the July 22 meeting, planning board chairman Norman Anderson said the historic review was apparently never completed. “They required more photos and didn’t get them,’’ he said.

Town Counsel Paul Cranston said that was in reference to the existing plan, not the amended plan. “We don’t know what the ramifications are to the historic area with the new plan,” said Cranston. “And won’t know until they go to Mass Historic with the new plan.’’

“This new plan will completely supersede the old plan if we approve this,” said Anderson. Blair’s attorney George Kiritsy raised a point of order, stating the meeting was a public hearing on the new plan. “The Rutland Planning Board doesn’t have jurisdiction over historic issues,” he added. “If the plan meets your rules and regulations there is nothing in your role that deals with historic issues.’’

Marcia Warrington asked if the public hearing could be continued and require the proponent to go through the Mass Historic review.

Warrington said she’s been asking whether the plan has to go through Mass Historic and hasn’t gotten an answer. “I have the right to have this addressed,” she said.

Cranston said he’d reviewed the 2005 special permit and found that it hasn’t lapsed and the request before the board is to amend that special permit. “Under the approval for the special permit there is no need to go back through the special permit process, it doesn’t gain anything, said Cranston.

“So we can leave the special permit approved in 2005 and any new conditions would be added,” said planning board member Tim Nahrwold.

At the last meeting sewer routing and phasing were discussed, said resident Michael Sullivan. “Norm clearly stated that the first house would not be built until every permit is in place. That statement should be included in the minutes and it wasn’t,” said Sullivan.

“That could be included in these minutes,” said Cranston.

The amended plan calls for 111 house lots on 121.66 acres including the open space portion of the parcel. The open space portion of the subdivision is 63.26 acres.

Asked after the meeting why its taken so long for anything to happen with the proposed subdivision, Anderson said over the past nine years the housing market has fallen apart. The town has several other development plans on the books where nothing has been done either, he added. Other, smaller projects in town have moved forward, but builders are hesitant to go ahead with projects that call for putting in roads due to the expense, said Anderson.

“We’ve had a huge uptick in estate lot plans that call for a minimum five-acre lot and can have frontage of 50-feet, so some of the smaller builders have gone ahead with this type of plan,’’ he added. The housing industry does seem to be coming back, he added.

According to Anderson the amended plan calls for entrances off Main Street and Charnock Hill Road and is essentially the same as the plan approved in 2005. There was a section near Thayer Pond that required two wetland crossings where he had a loop road with several houses on that loop, that was closer to the Rufus Putnam House, said Anderson after the meeting.

He’s revised that and moved all those houses out of that area to other sites in the subdivision and left that area as open space, that’s the big difference in the plan, he added. “This has gone on for so long that the planning board is in a situation where we honestly couldn’t sort out all the details regarding open space and the historical ramifications, that’s why we brought in town counsel to clarify issues for us,” said Anderson. “We’ll also have to sort through all the issues raised by our engineer,” he added. “Things are still cloudy.”

Anderson noted that the planning board tried to get a bylaw passed several years ago that would have limited the number of houses that could be built in a year. “It was the biggest town meeting ever held in Rutland but fell short of getting the required two thirds needed for the bylaw to pass,” he added.